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Worcestershire Acute Hospitals NHS Trust pleaded guilty to breaching section 2(1) of the HSWA and Regulation 6 of the Control of Substances Hazardous to Health 2002 after an incident in February 2007 when a healthcare worker contracted Hepatitis C. The worker had been training at the Trust for three weeks when she was instructed to take blood from a patient who had the virus. She was unable to gain access to the sharps bin as a result of other equipment in the way and she therefore placed the needle on a work surface. As she attended to the patient, she reached over the work surface and caught her wrist on the needle. The worker had been left unsupervised and was not told of the patient’s status until after the incident. An investigation highlighted the absence of adequate risk assessments, inadequate controls and training and a failure to monitor safe working practices at the Trust. In May 2008, four Improvement Notices were issued dealing with these inadequacies, which the Trust complied with. The Trust was fined £12.5k and ordered to pay costs of £9k.

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